Digital Handbill

March 06, 2008

Harvard Muslims Get Women Only Gym Time

This post is for all those who have criticized The Liston the grounds that it is insensitive, while ignoring stories like this that are a clear violation of church and state. Just like the footbaths in airport bathrooms and Muslim cabbies who refuse to allow guide dogs in their cabs, tolerance leads to the further restriction of our rights.

Men
have not been allowed to enter the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic
Center during certain times since Jan. 28, after members of the Harvard
Islamic Society and the Harvard Women's Center petitioned the
university for a more comfortable environment for women.

Harvard
Islamic Society's Islamic Knowledge Committee officer Ola Aljawhary, a
junior, said the women-only hours are being tested on a trial basis.
The special gym hours will be analyzed over Spring Break to determine
if they will continue, she said.

Aljawhary said that she does not believe that the women-only gym hours discriminate against men.

"These
hours are necessary because there is a segment of the Harvard female
population that is not found in gyms not because they don't want to
work out, but because for them working out in a co-ed gym is
uncomfortable, awkward or problematic in some way," she said.

Though
the policy was in part initiated by the school's Islamic group,
Aljawhary said women-only hours are not a case of "minority rights
trumping majority preference" and said women of different faiths have
showed interest in the hours.

"We live together in one
community, it only makes sense for everyone to compromise slightly in
order for everyone to live happily," she said. "This matter is simple:
Can't we just display basic decency and show tolerance and inclusion
for people not a part of the mainstream majority?"

Sure, that's why we need to settle separate time to accommodate every religion known to the campus...right? Or is this accommodation strictly for one group?

Harvard
junior Nick Wells said he believes the women-only hours are
inconvenient for the residents that live near the facility and
discriminate against men.

"It is unfair to impose a stringent
policy that inhibits [students] from using their own facility in order
to further a useless policy that doesn't have any real effect," he said.

In other words, how exactly are these women harmed by simply being in the presence of men?

Comments

Harvard Muslims Get Women Only Gym Time

This post is for all those who have criticized The Liston the grounds that it is insensitive, while ignoring stories like this that are a clear violation of church and state. Just like the footbaths in airport bathrooms and Muslim cabbies who refuse to allow guide dogs in their cabs, tolerance leads to the further restriction of our rights.

Men
have not been allowed to enter the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic
Center during certain times since Jan. 28, after members of the Harvard
Islamic Society and the Harvard Women's Center petitioned the
university for a more comfortable environment for women.

Harvard
Islamic Society's Islamic Knowledge Committee officer Ola Aljawhary, a
junior, said the women-only hours are being tested on a trial basis.
The special gym hours will be analyzed over Spring Break to determine
if they will continue, she said.

Aljawhary said that she does not believe that the women-only gym hours discriminate against men.

"These
hours are necessary because there is a segment of the Harvard female
population that is not found in gyms not because they don't want to
work out, but because for them working out in a co-ed gym is
uncomfortable, awkward or problematic in some way," she said.

Though
the policy was in part initiated by the school's Islamic group,
Aljawhary said women-only hours are not a case of "minority rights
trumping majority preference" and said women of different faiths have
showed interest in the hours.

"We live together in one
community, it only makes sense for everyone to compromise slightly in
order for everyone to live happily," she said. "This matter is simple:
Can't we just display basic decency and show tolerance and inclusion
for people not a part of the mainstream majority?"

Sure, that's why we need to settle separate time to accommodate every religion known to the campus...right? Or is this accommodation strictly for one group?

Harvard
junior Nick Wells said he believes the women-only hours are
inconvenient for the residents that live near the facility and
discriminate against men.

"It is unfair to impose a stringent
policy that inhibits [students] from using their own facility in order
to further a useless policy that doesn't have any real effect," he said.

In other words, how exactly are these women harmed by simply being in the presence of men?